Wow. I'm actually going to try this. Not so sure it's a good idea but let's give it a go. The first question that pops into my mind, is what should the very first entry be on your blog?


After all this isn't about me, it's about my work as a small press publisher, and by the same token, the daily frustrations of working with retailers and authors alike. Actually before they all gang up and beat me into a metaphorical pulp (it's metaphorical because only a few of our authors live near enough to accomplish that) there won't be much moaning about authors here. Some but not a lot.




My pet rant, and I suppose I'll return to this again and again, ad infinitum, is the lack of sales information provided by so many retailers. Some retailers, like our good friends at Bookstrand.com provide instant sales updates and we can look them up at any time. Some like Smashwords.com even send an e-mail every time they sell a book. Kudos to them.


Others though, especially in the world of the sales aggregators (and unfortunately, here, Smashwords also figure), don't get their information from the retailers who won't deal direct with small publishers, until it's old. I won't name and shame them , but one major US chain of bookstores sell e-books over the web and haven't published sales figures since 24th January, let alone paid the aggregator which means we haven't been paid yet either, and that in turn means nor have our authors.